Joe De Sena's Six Rules for Competition

Know a Guy

5 of 6

Credit: Courtesy Joe De Sena

A lot of formalized business people don't understand the value of connections. Where I grew up, everything was: "I've got a guy." There was this thing of just keeping friends because you didn't know when you were going to need something. MBA types coming into the organization don't seem to value that as much. If you need an insurance guy, you would just go into the Yellow Pages. I ran into an old friend who's in insurance, and I told him about an idea that I want to flesh out. So there's huge value in staying friends.